The Blue Sweater can teach the reader a lot of very important lessons. Probably the most important would be that in order to make things succeed you need to see them all the way through until they undoubtedly work. Jacqueline Novogratz constantly described how good intentioned projects went very poorly because either the people they were affecting didn't support them or because there was no initiative and action. Millions of dollars have been wasted on projects like these and the remains are scattered across the landscape. One example that is mentioned several times in this book is the maize mills which the women, who actually do the farming, don't know how to operate or fix. What happens is that as they break, no one knows how to fix them so they just sit where they are and provide nothing to the people they were supposed to help. The major lesson to take away form this book would be that projects and achievements don't happen by themselves, it takes hard work and perseverance to make sure that success is reached. Another thing to take away from this book would be that failure is something to rejoice about because it is a lesson on what can be improved. Failure that is acted upon leads to success. With failure there is always a lesson that one can learn from and improve the final result. Jacqueline failed several times in the starting of Duterimbere, but eventually, because she persevered, it became successful and really changed the lives of the people it touched. This book has many great lessons within it and can teach the reader a lot about success.